We're really excited with the arrival of this rainbow of reusable Filt string shopping bags that has arrived at the Farm Shop. Normandy-based company Filt have been making netting bags since 1860. Originally used by fishermen, these lightweight, expandable bags are the perfect carry-all and fit almost as much as Mary Poppins' famous carpet bag.

As well as being incredibly practical, here are six great reasons to invest in a reusable string bag:

1. A plastic bag can take from 15 to 1,000 years to break down, depending on environment. 2. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, but they can break down through photo degradation (exposure to light), breking into small, toxic particles.3. An estimated one million birds, 100,000 turtles, and countless other sea animals die each year from ingesting plastic. 4. The cost to recycle plastic bags outweighs their value, so most recycling facilities will not take them. Thanks to their light weight, plastic bags in landfills don’t always stay there. They are likely to fly away and can settle in trees, block storm drains, and clutter beaches.5. The average reusable bag has a lifespan equal to that of more than 700 disposable plastic bags.6. One person using reusable bags over their lifetime would remove more than 22,000 plastic bags from the environment. Now that's an incentive.